She Just Assumed
by ThePriceIsMeg
Summary: Jane wakes up from a coma. This is a sad story that you should not read.
1. Wake Up

_Someone challenged me to write the saddest Rizzles fic I could, with the stipulation that I can't use death. Consider yourself warned: **If you can't take a sad story with a sad ending, don't read this.** __Probably a two-shot. No connection to my other stories. __And please excuse the probably glaring medical impossibilities._

* * *

This wasn't the first time Jane Rizzoli had ever opened her eyes to the ceiling of a hospital room. She just didn't know what happened to put her there.

Somebody had to look at a chart before informing her. Her mind holds no memory of the car accident. It's probably better that way.

It was five years ago. Just a few days shy of five years, they'd told her. It only felt like she'd closed her eyes one night and opened them the next morning.

She'd thought the nurses were trying to pull a prank until she looked in a mirror and physically startled at what seemed to be her own ghost looking back. Her face is gaunt and pale, and her hair has been cut short. She's about to gripe about this until she considers what a pain it must've been to take care of, essentially, a corpse for five years; preserving her hairstyle was the least of anyone's concerns. She's never been one to fuss about her hair, but now seeing herself without it makes her quite self conscious.

Her limbs feel weak and soft and thin. It's only when she makes real attempts to move them that she starts to realize just how many wires and tubes are still attached to her, like umbilical cords that have been supplying her with artificial life.

Where has she been, mentally, all this time? She doesn't even remember dreaming.

Her mother's wailing is audible from halfway down the hallway before she even enters. She nearly smothers Jane with hugs until the nurse advises her to ease up. Her hair is much grayer.

Love and updates pour from her mouth: Tommy and Lydia are married and expecting their third child. TJ is about to start the 2nd grade. Frankie is the pride of the homicide unit. She herself has gotten her own apartment.

Hearing that she had missed Korsak by only three months was devastating. Heart attack, they said. Everyone is terribly sad but not terribly surprised - he'd never paid enough attention to his health.

Frost is still with BPD, but is currently helping work a case out of town. She'll look forward to a phone call with him soon.

Jane also learns that her father has come to see her six different times. She wonders what compels him to visit her more in pseudo-death than in life.

Tommy comes as soon as he can, with TJ in tow. Neither shy nor especially friendly, the little boy unsurprisingly behaves as if Jane is a mere stranger, so she doesn't push it too far beyond a general greeting. He looks so much like his dad had at that age - skinny as a rail. The current Tommy, meanwhile, has a little extra meat on him. He shows his sister a family picture to introduce Ryan, her second nephew. His hair is lighter - he looks more like his mother. Lydia's just starting to show with the third. They look happy.

Frankie seems very much the same. Turns out the apartment Ma mentioned moving into is in the same building as his. Poor guy looks like he's been tearing his hair out - she's not sure if she's just imagining that he has a little less. His smile is the most comforting of them all.

It's so much to take in - joyous and overwhelming and exhausting. She can't help nodding off more than once while they're talking to her.

But there's an elephant in the room; the one she's most eager to see is the one whose absence remains unexplained. Everyone knows she's thinking it, and their faces have all shown a reluctance to bring it up. When just Ma and Frankie are in the room with her, she decides that she has to be the one to do it.

"Maura was in the crash, too?" She had to have been. Considering the amount of time they regularly spend- _spent?_ - together, it was just a matter of odds that Maura was probably in the car with her.

They exchanges glances, tossing some idea back and forth across the room just out of her reach. Her mother nods solemnly, but no one offers any more information.

So Jane knows now why she has felt so incomplete, even while greeting a parade of loved ones.

She used to be strong enough to keep from crying, but not now. They know only half the reason why she's crying. They think she's only missing her best friend. They don't know she's missing the love of her life.

But this is not the subject her mother comments on; evidently, she's too immersed in her own guilt.

"We all came all the time. Five years is a long time, baby..." she says again, repentant, like she shirked her duty as a mother by not having been at Jane's bedside when she woke up, no matter how much time had passed.

"I understand," Jane says honestly. "You guys all had to live your lives." She wouldn't want them all to throw away five years coming to sit in a hospital room and stare at her almost-corpse every single day. It would be like them all being dead, too.

There has been enough death already.

She knows she should be happy that she has a new lease on life, but she doesn't feel very happy. In fact, she almost - and though she scolds herself for thinking it - almost would rather not have opened her eyes to a world without Maura.

Left alone, it takes her mere minutes to cry herself to sleep.

* * *

It's not until the next time she's alone with Frankie that everything changes.

"So.. you assumed Maura's dead, right?"

_Gee, thanks for the sensitivity._ She's not strong enough of heart to voice her sarcasm.

Along with heavy sorrow, the ghost of a smile flits across her face.

"She would've told me not to assume..."

"She still would."

"Hm?"

"She's not dead."

Jane's eyes widen, tears drying up as quickly as they had come.

"Everybody was thinkin' maybe it would have been better to let you think that. But it's not like you're never gonna find out, and you'll just be pissed at us."

"She's alive?" she steers him back to the only point she cares about. "What happened to her? Is she okay? Wasn't she in the crash? Is _she_ in a coma?"

"Yeah. In the crash, I mean, not a coma. She broke a couple bones, but nothing real serious."

"Well then, _what_? Where is she, what happened?" Jane asks, and she would be bouncing with impatience if she had the strength for it. "Didn't anybody tell her I woke up?"

Frankie shakes his head.

"Why not? Gimme your phone!"

"She's not.. around here anymore, Jane. She moved away."

She blinks.

"Where?"

"Connecticut."

"Well, that's not far."

"It.." he sighs. "It _is_ far."

"Not really... it's only like.. what, couple hours at most?" she frowns. "What's it matter anyway, don't they have phones in Connecticut anymore, or did I miss something while I was asleep? Don't you have her number?"

He rubs his face. There is a prickly sound as his fingers rake over stubble. It has always slightly unnerved her.

"Look, I'd soften this up if there was a way to, but I'm sorry, there's not, so.. thing is, ah... she moved away cause.. she's married, Jane."

She stares back, feeling all the life she has finally charged up in the last minute draining back out.

"Huh?" she asks, pale.

He just nods, knowing no additional information will really help.

"I'm really sorry."

_But wait - why did he say that? You never told him what happened. You never told him how you felt. You never told anybody. Not even Maura._

It had been.. what, a week before the crash? Just another ordinary night. They'd been sitting on Maura's couch and somehow or other, Maura had kissed her. It was the moment Jane fantasized about a million times, but in reality she'd been so stunned and bungled her reaction so badly that they ended up pretending it didn't happen. Jane had stayed a while longer before going home to her apartment, just to make sure it didn't look like she was running away. The next day at work, neither mentioned it, nor the next day, nor the next. But not a moment passed that Jane didn't spend rehearsing her apology and searching for the perfect way to confess her love back to Maura.

She'd needed time, she remembers thinking. Time to get used to the idea. Time to think of herself that way. Time to figure out how to explain this to everybody, to Maura. Time to be sure.

Like she had all the time in the world.

And boy, did she get her wish. Time has passed her by.

"You say that like it's bad news," she smiles at him, feebly masking her devastation. "My best friend got married. That's... that's cool."

"C'mon, Jane," he says, his voice grumbly and skeptical.

"What?"

"I _know _how it was. Everybody knew."

His tone makes it clear that continuing with this weak facade would be both pointless and insulting.

"She told you?"

"No. Nobody had to tell anybody you guys loved each other. You could see it from friggin' space."

"Does... d'you think _she_ knew I...?"

"Probably," he shrugs. "I dunno. We never talked about it. Didn't you, ever?"

She blinks a tear out of one eye before responding, "No."

Frankie exhales, re-folding a newspaper.

"So she... she never talks about me much, I guess.. ?"

"I dunno. Haven't talked to her in a long time."

"Ma either?"

"Nah. See, she moved and had the wedding at her new place in Connecticut. We were invited, but the week before the wedding she asked us not to come after all, 'cause we'd all just remind her of you. Well, I mean, she called and took a half hour cryin' on the phone until Ma guessed that was what she wanted, cause was too nice to come out and actually say it. And she used to send the occasional card.. email.. y'know, around Christmas and stuff, but... that tapered off."

Her mind reels.

This is certainly better than her being dead. But in a way, it might hurt just as much.

"I just... can't we...? I gotta see her," she says, dazed, unable to even imagine this scenario. "I gotta see this."

He sighs again.

"I'll take you. I don't think it's a good idea, but I know you're not gonna just let it go and you'll wind up passing out on a bus or something and hurting yourself, so I'd rather take you."

She nods, too upset to feel thankful.

"When?"

"I dunno."

"Well, what time is it?" she lugs her heavy head to the side, searching the room for a clock.

Frankie looks at his sister like he almost wants to laugh.

"Jane, you haven't moved in five years, you're not exactly ready for a road trip today. You gotta get some strength back, and I'm sure they have to do tests, release you, all that stuff."

"Oh." She realizes it's not like there's a rush. Another few days, or weeks, or whatever it will be, won't change anything now. But it feels like a life sentence to her.

She supposes it's good to have some time to prepare. What will she say?

What _can_ you say to the love of your life when they already belong to someone else?


	2. Go To Sleep

_Thank you to everyone who reviewed and who dares continue :) _

_To those who asked for a happy ending instead: no. See; the whole point of this story/challenge is to be sad. __**If you don't want to see a sad ending, read no further.**__ I really can't think of a clearer way to warn you._

_Just to be safe, maybe a little vague suicide tw towards the end, even though it's not about that. _

* * *

It seems like an eternity has passed when The Day finally comes.

After essentially time-travelling five years into the future, Jane half expects to see flying cars and robots out the window as they drive, but everything looks very much how she remembers it. She's quiet for most of the trip, too lost in her own head.

It seems like only ten minutes later when Frankie pulls into a driveway, checking the address against the directions he'd scribbled down.

"This is it."

Jane soaks in the sight of a simple but very elegant-looking two-story Victorian house. Its yard is perfectly manicured, apart from constantly falling autumn leaves. It's pretty, but she struggles to view it as Maura's home.

It's not the home that feels- _felt_ - like her own. It's not the home where she took off her shoes automatically by the door, not the one with the kitchen where she and her mother secretly made fattening midnight snacks, not the one with the couch with the little green circles where she'd laughed and cried and drank and lived seemingly every important little moment that comes to mind. Not the home where her best friend lives.

She flips down the sun visor and checks herself in the mirror, clawing her short hair into a pixieish sort of style. She thinks the cut looks ridiculous on her, but at least it might pass for a semi-intentional style instead of just a haphazardly hacked-up mop.

Frankie helps her into her wheelchair. She can stand on her own, and even argued that she could make it here without the chair - she hates for Maura to see her in it. But realizing her weakness combined with the trip's emotional exertion, she's secretly glad to have it.

The air is fresher here than in Boston.

"I don't wanna go to the door." She glances toward it, noticing three disqualifying steps up the porch before the wide, paneled ivory door. "Couldn't anyway."

"Well, _I_ better. She deserves at least two seconds' warning, y'know. You've had a long time to get ready for this. She can't just open her door and see you there."

"Yeah. You're right. Can you... can you put me over there?" Jane requests, pointing to a nice spot a short way off to the side of the property, where the grass is mottled with sunlight through those autumn leaves that have not yet fallen. She won't be immediately visible from the front door. Maura can decide whether to come out and see her.

Dry leaves crunch under her wheels, and then under Frankie's feet as he goes to the door. It's quiet for a few minutes. She looks around curiously at the grounds, but isn't really seeing anything except memories.

Frankie's words slowly sink in, and despite her determination to make this happen since the instant she learned Maura was alive, her resolve starts to weaken.

_This _is_ unbelievably rude of you to just spring this on her. No, this is awful. Never mind, never mind - maybe you can get Frankie's attention and get out of here before Maura even notices that someb-_

Leaves crunch nearby; her heart jumps, but the presence is too light to be Maura. Maybe a pet, or...

A tiny little girl approaches from her side around to her front, stopping just out of reach, looking curious but cautious. The bottom of her pale blue dress flutters slightly in the breeze.

"..Hi?" Jane blinks.

The child extends a wildflower in one little hand.

"Well, thank you," Jane says, reaching out and accepting it gently before really giving her face a close look. Her heart stops as she puts two and two together, finding those little features and that blonde hair all too familiar.

Duty done, her tiny visitor scampers away before another word emerge from Jane's open mouth.

So caught up in her thoughts, she doesn't entirely hear someone else approach and stop several feet behind her.

"Jane?"

Her eyes close.

It's like her favorite song. Years melt away. This is all just an awful joke. There was never an accident. They're still best friends. Still in love. Still have a future together.

Her heart heals completely and then shatters again in the space of one second.

"Maura."

"You're okay..?" she says thickly. There are too many emotions fighting over her voice to characterize it as any one. "I... I can't believe it."

"Me neither," Jane agrees, more wistfully than she intended.

"God. I'm so glad, Jane. I don't even... let me look at you..."

She hears Maura coming closer, moving around to the front of her chair for a look, and she averts her gaze. She decided before arriving that she doesn't want to see what Maura looks like now. That'll only interfere with her long future of drowning herself in the past. She'd rather remember her as she was.

"Oh, you're looking well, Jane," she says, leaving out the operative word, _considering_. "It's so good to see you."

"It's good to see you too," Jane answers, her gaze fixed on the lawn. "Sorry to just surprise you like this. I should have called."

"It's the best surprise I've ever gotten." Maura's voice wavers slightly. "Has.. has your vision been affected?" she adds gently.

"No."

There's a pause while Maura accepts that Jane just doesn't plan to look her in the eye.

"You met.. my daughter," she says uncertainly.

Jane nods. The confirmation of what she already knew is somehow like a stab to the gut.

"She's beautiful," she rasps. "What's her name?"

There's a quiet moment, filled only with the gentle breeze skittering dry leaves across the walkway.

"Jane.. come in the house, please," Maura offers gently. "You can come in through the back, there are no steps."

Jane shakes her head. She's only fit to be right where she is. If she had her way, she'd have walked here and sat down on the ground against one of the trees. She feels like being on the ground, if not under it.

"Then let me get you something warm. This chill isn't good for your immune system. I'll be right back."

Before Jane can protest, her crunchy footsteps fade away.

She has only a moment to consider how this is not the reunion she's been imagining, when a different set approach, these heavier, and from the front.

Her eyes find brown loafers and follow creased pant legs upward to a tall man with light, wispy hair.

"You must be Jane Rizzoli." His voice is gentle, his face pleasant but bland.

"You must be..." she doesn't even know his name. "Maura's..." It hurts to say.

_You were supposed to be Maura's._

"Alan," he nods. "Dr. Alan Foster. I'm sure glad to see you back on your feet - bit of a miracle, from what I understand. Maura's told me so much about you. She was just devastated."

_Devastated enough to fall in love with somebody else._

_Don't be an ass. It was five years. Did you expect the best woman on the face of the planet to stay single forever waiting for you? Especially after you left her hanging like a fool, after you didn't even have the guts to tell her you cared?_

"We met in the hospital," he goes on, choosing one of the many questions he guesses she must have. "She was there every day visiting you, and we kept running into each other. Finally sat down for lunch one day and got to be friends."

_Friends._ That word hurts, too. It's not solely the loss of a future with Maura that's breaking her heart; that was never a guarantee in the first place. But she misses her best friend. With the way she left things, and what's changed in her absence, it could never be the same again.

Jane reexamines his face. He seems nice. She'll ask Frankie to run a check on him. Or maybe he already did, years ago.

So, this is the person who got to be who she always wanted to be. Who she just _assumed_ she would get to be.

_You shouldn't have assumed._

Her eyes brim with regret and she can't inhale. She envies this man bitterly, but doesn't hate him. He hasn't done anything wrong. She has.

They can hear the front door open. Maura must be on her way back.

"You love her?" she can't stop herself from asking hurriedly.

"Yes," he nods, not looking thrown by the question. "God, yeah. She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

His eyes look the way hers feel. Although she hates that this is possible, she's glad to get the impression that he's sincere.

"Good," she forces a smile, but it does nothing to stop the tears from coming.

The crunch of leaves grows louder. She moves her head to indicate for him to come closer, and he leans in to catch the words too quiet for Maura to hear.

_"Make her happy,"_ she requests, tears destroying both her voice and vision. _"Make her so h-happy."_

"I'm trying my best," he promises, looking quite earnest and also a tiny bit quizzical.

It occurs to her that Maura may not have ever told her husband exactly how they'd felt about each other, and that these may sound like strange words for a past friend to impart. But she doesn't care.

_"Don't ever take her for granted. Not for a second."_ Her voice is so garbled, it's a wonder he can even understand her.

"I won't."

Maura arrives, and the couple exchanges a momentary whisper. Jane does not look any higher than her shoes.

She smiles at the memory of sitting on the floor in Maura's closet and looking up at a wall of shoes. An endless supply.

"Well. Nice, uh, meeting you, Jane," Alan offers.

Poor guy. As much torment as Jane's in, she's not oblivious to how awkward this must be for him. She holds up a palm to serve as a reply.

A soft hunter green blanket is lowered over Jane. She looks down at its plaid pattern and nowhere else.

Maura kneels beside her chair. One bony hand is taken between two soft, warm, healthy ones. They feel right. They fit so well. They could heal her. They would have healed her if they'd only held on longer.

She squeezes back, weakly.

"I held your hand every single day for a year."

Jane can make her tears silent, but she can't stop them. Not even a little. She just angles her face away.

"The first day I skipped.. it was because of work, not because I didn't want to come... I cried all day. _All_ day. Then I started taking one day a week off. I felt so guilty, but.. I needed it. Then it got to be _just_ one day a week. And then I just... it hurt so badly, Jane. And I believed that it wasn't really doing you any good. If I had even a glimmer of hope left that.."

"You had to live," Jane whispers through her hands. She does understand. If Maura were in a coma, she would certainly go visit her every day. But it would be like reopening a wound, day after day. No matter how loyal she likes to consider herself, there _would_ eventually come a time where she would have to step back and let that wound heal.

"I know it must look like I just abandoned you, but it's not that I got tired of you or stopped caring. It's that all medical evidence said you were already gone. The probability of someone regaining consciousness after being in your state for that long is virtually zero. You were practically brain dead. I r-reviewed all of your tests myself. I went with the science... it was the only thing I ha-had to hold onto when.. when I started to forget what it felt like for your h-hand to hold mine, back.."

Jane doesn't see the embrace coming. She stiffens in her chair, clenches her fists, refusing to cling to what she can't have. If she hugged back like she wants to, they'd need the jaws of life to pry her off again. Her body is lurching subtly with the effort of containing what would surely be violent sobs if released. Still, Maura doesn't let go right away.

_If you'd just told her you loved her. What the hell were you waiting for?_

The words she'd been working up to saying five years ago, like a coward, she's now struggling to keep from pouring out of her mouth. She wants to whisper it, scream it from the rooftops, sob it, sing it, tattoo it on herself, pay a pilot to write it in the clouds, have it engraved on wedding bands. But it's too late. It wouldn't change anything now.

_Maybe if you'd had the guts to tell her, she would have waited longer. _

_Maybe that would've only been a waste. You two weren't ever going to be happily ever after. Maybe you made that part up on your own. This was gonna be her happily ever after, all along. You were just a chapter. A false lead. A dead end._

Jane forgets her rule about not looking at her and her eyes widen as they land on hazel ones.

There is no shock. It's like she'd last looked at her yesterday. Her hairstyle is a little shorter, but he hasn't aged one bit.

Maura is beauty itself. Love itself. Tear tracks detour around her cheeks as a smile forms.

Maybe that's one good reason to tell her.

"Maura.. I know it doesn't cha-ange anything now but.. five years ago you told me that.. that you loved me. An-nd I didn't say it back-"

"You don't have t-"

"Let me," she insists. "Since I know y-you don't guess, you must still not know why I didn't say it back. So I thought you m-might like to kn-now that the reason... was that I was a coward. An-nd an id-diot. Not cause I didn't love you. I've loved you every m-minute I've ever known you," she whimpers, her face contorted with misery but also a very disjointed attempt at a smile. She's out of energy to care how pathetic of an impression she's leaving Maura with. "I love you with every.. l-last little piece of my soul. I'm so sorry I ne-never told you that. I shoulda told you. You deserve to be told. I shoulda told you a million times when I had the chance... I had to tell you once, even tho-though it's too l-late," she croaks, slumping in her wheelchair and lowering her face into her hands. "I'm s-so sorry."

Maura closes her eyes and two perfectly matching tears tie in a race down to her jaw.

"I never wondered. I didn't have to guess, Jane, I _knew_. I knew you loved me, that was why I was able to say it to you," she says, running a hand over Jane's short crop of hair.

A man's hushed shout comes from over by the house: "Nono, Janie, c'mere! C'mon, pumpkin."

Jane turns her eyes to the porch and catches that little girl taking the last steps of a running jump into her dad's arms, and he hoists her up as they disappear through the front door of their house.

_Oh._

She clenches her jaw and her lips together, having no idea what expression her face must be contorted into as she tries to keep her composure. There's a silent understanding that they'll both pretend not to have heard the small, anguished sound that just escaped her throat without her permission.

"And I've never stopped loving you," Maura smiles weakly.

Jane doesn't know how much more she could take.

There's a long pause while both just work on breathing again.

"I know things are different, but.. I'd still like to be your friend," Maura offers finally.

For a shining moment, she considers it. But it's no good.

_Because you want her in a way you can't have her. Because you want her to want you in a way she shouldn't. __Now there's not just two sets of feelings to screw up - there's four. _

"I think we both know that wouldn't be fair to anybody. I'll always be your friend, Maura," she adds carefully. "But I don't think we should see each other. At least.. not until I... not for a long time."

Holiday visits or the odd phone call will only keep stringing Jane along, keeping alive a false hope for something that will never come. If Jane can't have all, she knows she must have none. Unless, someday in the future, her feelings for Maura go away, but she doubts that day will ever come.

This way, Jane is sure to suffer - but she'll be the only one. Maura might be sad, but she isn't losing anything she hasn't already long given up and moved on from.

"I understand," Maura says sadly after a long silence.

"Is he good to you?" Jane asks.

"Alan? Very. He's a good man."

"Good."

_Does he make her laugh? Does he let her cry on him? Does he listen? Does he hold her? Does he love her like I would've loved her?_

"..And you love him?"

Maura sighs.

"I... I'm sorry, but yes, I do."

"Don't be sorry. I wanted to hear yes."

Maura looks dejectedly toward the ground; Jane raises her chin with one thin finger.

"It's most important to me that you're happy. Even if it isn't with me. I'm gonna go now, but I gotta know you're happy first. See.. to you, that's your home, that's your family, that's your life," Jane points toward the house. "To me, I'm about to leave my best friend alone in some house I've never seen, with strangers, in a different state. I can't leave her there without knowing she's happy there."

"I am happy," Maura nods, a fresh tear crawling down her cheek.

"Good," Jane says, brushing it away. Her own face screws up with effort to stay composed despite her own tears. "I hope you a-and your family are ha-happy. Every day. I really do."

"Thank you, Jane. And I h- I hope the same for you."

One last question lingers in Jane's mind:

_If she had known you'd wake up, would she have waited for you?_

It's all she wants to know. But that's not something she can ask of Maura. It's essentially asking if she wishes she could undo her family. Besides, neither answer would hurt Jane less. And you can't undo life. It's fate, or the hand of God, or whatever. Things didn't turn out wrong. They turned out just the way they were supposed to. Jane had just been betting her heart on a losing hand.

It hasn't been a perfect visit, as she rehearsed in her mind, but she supposes this ought to be the end of it. She's the visitor; she must leave.

"Your blanket," she says, picking some of it up from her lap to offer it back to Maura.

Maura lightly presses it back down.

"Keep it."

Normally Jane would insist she take it back, but she doesn't have the strength.

"Thanks."

Neither moves.

"You have to go 'cause I can't," Jane whispers.

Expelling a breath, Maura stands.

"Can I.. help?" she offers, reaching for the chair's handles.

Jane shakes her head.

"Goodbye, Muhw-" Her trembling bottom lip will not cooperate with this statement. These two words are ones she never wanted to say together.

She can't open her eyes; they're squeezed shut too hard as hot tears leak out. This is why she doesn't see Maura bend.

Lips touch her temple and she's so happy for that one second that she feels like she might die; afterward, she wishes she had.

"Au revoir, Jane."

She listens to Maura's sniffling and footsteps starting to crunch away in the autumn leaves. It takes several steps for Jane to will her eyes to open again.

"Maura?"

The blonde pauses and turns.

"Do-don't uh.." she asks hoarsely, "don't forget me all the way, hm?"

Maura wipes at her eye.

"I couldn't possibly."

Jane is glad she broke her vow not to look at Maura today, because that last loving look is one she'll work very hard to keep burned into her memory.

One tiny, soft part of the back of her mind, made naiive by fairy tales and Hollywood movies, waits for Maura to come running back from her house and report some loophole where none of it counts, where it was all just some misunderstanding and they can run away together after all.

She doesn't.

Jane sits there alone, exhausted and a bit numb, listening to wind whispering in the trees.

One more set of footsteps approaches, one that Jane recognizes automatically.

She'd forgotten Frankie was even here. He must have been sitting in the car.

"Leave me," she croaks, tears trickling down her neck. She can hardly face the drive home.

"You know I can't."

Her hands ache, and she notices her fists are clenched; releasing them, she sees that she has crushed her little namesake's flower. A startlingly loud sob of disappointment escapes her mouth.

"What?" he steps closer. "What happened?"

"I ru-uined it," she cries, opening her hand fully to show him. More than half of its petals fall onto the blanket. "Dammit, I ruined it. I didn't mean to!" she sobs out loud. "I didn't me-ean to."

"Well.. I'll get you another one? There's whole fields of those around," he makes a sweeping gesture.

She shakes her head.

"I wa-wanted this one."

Cradling the flower in one palm like an injured bird, Jane carefully picks up every single petal while Frankie wheels her back to the car.

Intending to leave the blanket on Maura's doorstep even though it's been offered to her, she almost asks Frankie to fold it for her, but stops as she notices its scent. It smells like Maura, and would therefore be her most valuable possession. She can't part with it.

She puts the flower in her water bottle in Frankie's cup holder. It leans out at an angle, hanging precariously on its bent stem. She keeps the loose petals in her hand.

Jane's eyes watch the house in the side view mirror until it's out of sight.

"Did you know she had a daughter?" she asks as they turn off of Maura's street.

"We got a birth announcement, but we never met her or anything," he sighs. "I shoulda told you. I never thought you'd meet her."

"She named her..." she blinks, choking herself up again.

"Told you she loved you."

A minute later, they are stopped on the side of the road and lets her sob on his shoulder.

After that, the ride is mostly silent.

She spends it trying to decide whether to go on living, ultimately deciding in favor of it. Not because she has any particular will to live, but because she's already been enough of a strain on her poor family. She owes them all the life they paid for with more money and time and tears than they could afford. Mostly, she decides to live because if she didn't, the news would get back to Maura, and she would know the reason. She can't leave Maura with the request that she be happy, and then do something that would certainly make her sad.

She'll just go home.

No, she can't do that. Her home lives somewhere else now.

She'll go to her apartment.

No... her apartment sold years ago. Ma's place, probably.

So she'll go to Ma's place and... try to think of a way to finish that sentence.

* * *

Even after couple of months, Jane is still weak and tires quickly. Rizzoli family Sunday dinners go on at Angela's apartment, and she often goes to bed before all the family has even left.

One such Sunday night, Frankie spies the two boys peeking into the dark, half-open doorway of his mother's makeshift guest-bedroom.

"She's been doin' that ever since she came home from the hospital," TJ whispers.

"Why?" asks Ryan.

"She hit her head and went to sleep for long time and woke up crazy."

"What do you two think you're doing?" Frankie demands in a hushed but still startling tone.

"Aunt Jane's talkin' to herself again," TJ answers, half giggling, waving his hand to unabashedly invite his uncle in on the fun. "'bout baseball, I think."

"Why she do that?" the younger boy looks up at him.

"You guys leave Aunt Jane alone. I don't wanna hear you talkin' like that again. Now go on," he dispatches his nephews with light shoves. "It's time to go. Your dad's looking for you."

Alone at the doorway, he reaches for the handle to shut the door, and takes one last glance into the bedroom at the sound of a sleepy chuckle.

_"Ion'tcare fit's at Fenway,"_ Jane mumbles on the tail of one faintly snoring breath.

His sister rolls over in the moonlight, a pillow squeezed in her arms underneath the green blanket that she's hardly let go of since she got it. _"I love you, too."_

With a silent sigh, Frankie closes his eyes and then the door.

-End-

* * *

_A/N: Well, mysterious fic challenger, I hope that was sad enough for you. Thanks everyone for reading and please take a moment to tell me how much you hate me :)_

_Also, just kidding, it was all a dream and Jane and Maura totally married with 300 babies._


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